Fort Pitt (Pennsylvania)
Fort Pitt was a fort built by British forces between 1759 and 1761 during the French and Indian War at the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers, where the Ohio River is formed in western Pennsylvania. It was near the site of Fort Duquesne, a French colonial fort built in 1754 as tensions increased between Great Britain and France in both Europe and North America; the French destroyed the fort in 1758. British colonial protection of this area led to the development of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County, Pennsylvania by British-American colonists and immigrants. In April 1754, the French began building Fort Duquesne on the site of the small British Fort Prince George at the beginning of the French and Indian War; the Braddock expedition, a 1755 British attempt to take Fort Duquesne, met with defeat at the Battle of the Monongahela at present-day Braddock, Pennsylvania. The French garrison defeated an attacking British regiment in September 1758 at the Battle of Fort Duquesne. French Colonel de Lignery ordered Fort Duquesne destroyed and abandoned at the approach of General John Forbes' expedition in late November.
The Forbes expedition was successful where the Braddock expedition had failed because the British Treaty of Easton of 1758 had cut into former French alliances with Native American tribes. Chiefs of 13 American Indian nations agreed to negotiate peace with the colonial governments of Pennsylvania and New Jersey and to abandon any alliances with the French; the nations were the Six Nations of the Iroquois League, bands of the Lenape, the Shawnee. They agreed to the treaty based on the colonial governments' promising to respect their rights to hunting and territory in the Ohio Country, to prohibit establishing new settlements west of the Appalachian Mountains, to withdraw British and colonial military troops after the war; the American Indians wanted a trading post at Fort Duquesne, but they did not want a British army garrison or colonial settlement. The British named it Fort Pitt, after William Pitt the Elder; the fort was built from 1759 to 1761 during the French and Indian War, next to the site of former Fort Duquesne.
It was built in the popular pentagram shape, with bastions at the star points, by Captain Harry Gordon, a British Engineer in the 60th Royal American Regiment. After the colonial war and in the face of continued broken treaties, broken promises and encroachment by the Europeans, in 1763 the western Lenape and Shawnee took part in a Native uprising known as Pontiac's War, an effort to drive settlers out of the Native American territory; the American Indians' siege of Fort Pitt began on June 22, 1763, but they found it too well-fortified to be taken by force. In negotiations during the siege, Captain Simeon Ecuyer, the commander of Fort Pitt, gave two Delaware emissaries blankets, exposed to smallpox; the potential of this act to cause an epidemic among the American Indians was understood. Commander William Trent wrote that he hoped "it will have the desired effect." Colonel Henry Bouquet, leading a relief force, would discuss similar tactics with Commander-in-Chief Jeffery Amherst. The effectiveness of these attempts to spread the disease are unknown, although it is known that the method used is inefficient compared to respiratory transmission, it is difficult to differentiate from occurring epidemics resulting from previous contacts with colonists.
During and after Pontiac's War, epidemics of smallpox among Native Americans devastated the tribes of Ohio Valley and the Great Lakes areas. On August 1, 1763, most of the American Indians broke off the siege to intercept the approaching force under Colonel Bouquet. In the Battle of Bushy Run, Bouquet fought off the American Indian attack and relieved Fort Pitt on August 10. In 1772, after Pontiac's War, the British commander at Fort Pitt sold the building to two colonists, William Thompson and Alexander Ross. At that time, the Pittsburgh area was claimed by the colonies of both Virginia and Pennsylvania, which struggled for power over the region. After Virginians took control of Fort Pitt, they called it Fort Dunmore, in honour of Virginia's Governor Lord Dunmore; the fort served as a staging ground in Dunmore's War of 1774. During the American Revolutionary War, Fort Pitt served as a headquarters for the western theatre of the war. In present-day Michigan, the British garrisoned Fort Detroit.
A redoubt, a small brick outbuilding called the Blockhouse, survives in Point State Park as the sole remnant of Fort Pitt. Erected in 1764, it is believed to be the oldest building still standing in Pittsburgh. Used for many years as a private residence, the blockhouse was purchased and preserved for many years by the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Notice was given to area residents of an auction of all salvageable remains of the fort on August 3, 1797 after the U. S. Army decommissioned the site. In the 20th century, the city of Pittsburgh commissioned archeological excavation of the foundations of Fort Pitt. Afterward, some of the fort was reconstructed to give visitors at Point State Park a sense of the size of the fort. In this rebuilt section, the Fort Pitt Museum is housed in the Monongahela Bastion, excavated portions of the fort were filled in. Fort Pitt Foundry was an important armaments manufacturing center for the Federal government during the Civil War, under the charge of William Metcalf.
The Allegheny Uprising starred Claire Trevor. In Cecil B. DeMille's Unconquered, starring Gary Cooper and Paulette Goddard, Howard Da Silva played a gunrunner and Boris Karloff a Seneca chief who lead an American Indian uprising in 1763
Point State Park
Point State Park is a Pennsylvania state park on 36 acres in Downtown Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, USA, at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, forming the Ohio River. Built on land acquired via eminent domain from industrial enterprises in the 1950s, the park opened in August 1974 when construction was completed on its iconic fountain. Pittsburgh settled on the current design after rejecting an alternative plan for a Point Park Civic Center designed by Frank Lloyd Wright; the park includes the outlines and remains of two of the oldest structures in Pittsburgh, Fort Pitt and Fort Duquesne. The Fort Pitt Museum, housed in the Monongahela Bastion of Fort Pitt, commemorates the French and Indian War, in which the area soon to become Pittsburgh was a major battlefield, it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960 for its role in the strategic struggles between Native Americans, French colonists, British colonists, for control of the Ohio River watershed.
Today the park provides recreational space for workers and residents in downtown Pittsburgh and acts as the site for major cultural events in the city, including the Venture Outdoors Festival, Three Rivers Arts Festival and Three Rivers Regatta. The park is operated by the Pennsylvania Bureau of State Parks.. The location of the fountain at the tip of the Point served as a connector for two old bridges, the Manchester Bridge and Point Bridge. Both were removed in 1970 to make way for the fountain. In April 2009, the fountain was turned off for refurbishment; the fountain serves as the western terminus for the Great Allegheny Passage, a 150-mile hiker-biker trail beginning at the 184.5 milepost of the Cumberland, MD terminus of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park, which begins in the Georgetown area of Washington, DC, thus forming in total a 350-mile recreational trail between DC and Pittsburgh. Michael DeBerardinis, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, announced a $25 million plan to renovate Point State Park on October 11, 2006.
The plans called for improving the green spaces within the park, expanding recreational opportunities, preserving historical installations, updating outdated amenities and grew to a final figure of $36 million. The project was scheduled to be completed within four years, with the majority of the work to be completed in time for Pittsburgh's 250th anniversary celebration in 2008. Sections of the park have fallen into disuse since it was established in the summer of 1974; the homeless have used the trenches surrounding the foundations of the remains of Fort Pitt as a temporary shelter for years. Graffiti on the structures of the park had become a major problem. Sections of the park were littered with fence posts, cut logs, plastic drums, rolled up snow drift fencing; the walkways were beginning to fall apart. The restoration project aimed to reestablish the park as a recreational destination. Plans for the 2006 improvements to the park included installing new pumps and pipes in the fountain, establishing a seating area around the fountain and a wading area for children, restoring the river walk with steps that lead into the river, building kiosks for information and concessions, renovating the rest rooms, water taxi landings and surrounding docks, installing wireless internet access hubs.
These plans were not put into place without some controversy. On January 25, 2007, 13 members of two local labor unions were arrested for blocking access by contractors to the work sites at the remnants of Fort Pitt; the unions were protesting the use of four nonrepresented workers by the contractor. In addition, advocates for historical preservation disagreed with the decision to bury the remnants of the fort's walls, which could damage the bricks and remove the walls from public access. Point State Park was reopened to the public in the spring of 2008; the renovation process took a half to complete. The confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, creating the Ohio River, has impacted the history of Point State Park; this confluence was referred to as the Forks of the Ohio, which remains the official landmark-designated name for the site. It was once at the center of river travel and wars throughout the pioneer history of Western Pennsylvania. During the mid-18th century, the armies of France and the Great Britain carved paths through the wilderness to control the point area and trade on the rivers.
The French built Fort Duquesne in 1754 on foundations of Fort Prince George, built by the colonial forces of Virginia. The French held Fort Duquesne during the French and Indian War, it became one of the focal points for that war because of its strategic riverside location in disputed territory; the French held the fort early in the war, turning back the 1755 expedition led by General Edward Braddock. A smaller attack by James Grant in September 1758 was with heavy losses. Two months on November 25, the Forbes Expedition, under General John Forbes, captured the site after the French destroyed Fort Duquesne the day before; the British named it Fort Pitt. The Forbes Expedition was successful where the Braddock expedition had failed because of the Treaty of Easton, in which local American Indians agreed to abandon their alliance with the French. American Indians Delawares and Shawnee, made this agreement with the understanding that the British military would leave the area after the war; the Indians did not want British a
Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette
Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, known in the United States as Lafayette, was a French aristocrat and military officer who fought in the American Revolutionary War, commanding American troops in several battles, including the Siege of Yorktown. After returning to France, he was a key figure in the French Revolution of 1789 and the July Revolution of 1830. Lafayette was born into a wealthy land-owning family in Chavaniac in the province of Auvergne in south central France, he followed the family's martial tradition and was commissioned an officer at age 13. He became convinced that the American cause was noble in its revolutionary war, he traveled to the New World seeking glory in it, he was made a major general at age 19, but he was not given American troops to command. He was wounded during the Battle of Brandywine but still managed to organize an orderly retreat, he served with distinction in the Battle of Rhode Island. In the middle of the war, he sailed for home to lobby for an increase in French support.
He was given senior positions in the Continental Army. In 1781, troops under his command in Virginia blocked forces led by Cornwallis until other American and French forces could position themselves for the decisive Siege of Yorktown. Lafayette returned to France and was appointed to the Assembly of Notables in 1787, convened in response to the fiscal crisis, he was elected a member of the Estates General of 1789, where representatives met from the three traditional orders of French society: the clergy, the nobility, the commoners. After forming the National Constituent Assembly, he helped to write the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen with Thomas Jefferson's assistance; this document was inspired by the United States Declaration of Independence and invoked natural law to establish basic principles of the democratic nation-state. He advocated the end of slavery, in keeping with the philosophy of natural liberty. After the storming of the Bastille, he was appointed commander-in-chief of France's National Guard and tried to steer a middle course through the years of revolution.
In August 1792, radical factions ordered his arrest, he fled into the Austrian Netherlands. He was spent more than five years in prison. Lafayette returned to France after Napoleon Bonaparte secured his release in 1797, though he refused to participate in Napoleon's government. After the Bourbon Restoration of 1814, he became a liberal member of the Chamber of Deputies, a position that he held for most of the remainder of his life. In 1824, President James Monroe invited him to the United States as the nation's guest, he visited all 24 states in the union and met a rapturous reception. During France's July Revolution of 1830, he declined an offer to become the French dictator. Instead, he supported Louis-Philippe as king, but turned against him when the monarch became autocratic, he is buried in Picpus Cemetery in Paris, under soil from Bunker Hill. He is sometimes known as "The Hero of the Two Worlds" for his accomplishments in the service of both France and the United States. Lafayette was born on 6 September 1757 to Michel Louis Christophe Roch Gilbert Paulette du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette, colonel of grenadiers, Marie Louise Jolie de La Rivière, at the château de Chavaniac, in Chavaniac-Lafayette, near Le Puy-en-Velay, in the province of Auvergne.
Lafayette's lineage was one of the oldest and most distinguished in Auvergne and in all of France. Males of the Lafayette family enjoyed a reputation for courage and chivalry and were noted for their contempt for danger. One of Lafayette's early ancestors, Gilbert de Lafayette III, a Marshal of France, had been a companion-at-arms of Joan of Arc's army during the Siege of Orléans in 1429. According to legend, another ancestor acquired the crown of thorns during the Sixth Crusade, his non-Lafayette ancestors are notable. Lafayette's paternal uncle Jacques-Roch died on 18 January 1734 while fighting the Austrians at Milan in the War of the Polish Succession. Lafayette's father died on the battlefield. On 1 August 1759, Michel de Lafayette was struck by a cannonball while fighting a British-led coalition at the Battle of Minden in Westphalia. Lafayette became marquis and Lord of Chavaniac. Devastated by the loss of her husband, she went to live in Paris with her father and grandfather, leaving Lafayette to be raised in Chavaniac-Lafayette by his paternal grandmother, Mme de Chavaniac, who had brought the château into the family with her dowry.
In 1768, when Lafayette was 11, he was summoned to Paris to live with his mother and great-grandfather at the comte's apartments in Luxembourg Palace. The boy was sent to school at the Collège du Plessis, part of the University of Paris, it was decided that he would carry on the family martial tradition; the comte, the boy's great-grandfather, enrolled the boy in a program to train future Musketeers. Lafayette's mother and great-grandfather died, on 3 and 24 April 1770 leaving Lafayette an income of 25,000 livres. Upon the death of an uncle, the 12-year-old Lafayette inherited a handsome yearly income of 120,000 livres. In May 1771, aged less than 14, Lafayette was commissioned an officer in the Musketeers, with the rank of sous-lieutenant, his duties, which included marching in military parades and pr
Seven Years' War
The Seven Years' War was a global conflict fought between 1756 and 1763. It involved every European great power of the time and spanned five continents, affecting Europe, the Americas, West Africa and the Philippines; the conflict split Europe into two coalitions, led by the Kingdom of Great Britain on one side and the Kingdom of France, the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Spain, the Swedish Empire on the other. Meanwhile, in India, some regional polities within the fragmented Mughal Empire, with the support of the French, tried to crush a British attempt to conquer Bengal; the war's extent has led some historians to describe it as World War Zero, similar in scale to other world wars. Although Anglo-French skirmishes over their American colonies had begun with what became the French and Indian War in 1754, the large-scale conflict that drew in most of the European powers was centered on Austria's desire to recover Silesia from the Prussians. Seeing the opportunity to curtail Britain's and Prussia's ever-growing might and Austria put aside their ancient rivalry to form a grand coalition of their own, bringing most of the other European powers to their side.
Faced with this sudden turn of events, Britain aligned itself with Prussia, in a series of political manoeuvres known as the Diplomatic Revolution. However, French efforts ended in failure when the Anglo-Prussian coalition prevailed, Britain's rise as among the world's predominant powers destroyed France's supremacy in Europe, thus altering the European balance of power. Conflict between Great Britain and France broke out in 1754–1756 when the British attacked disputed French positions in North America. Hostilities were heightened when a British unit led by a 22 year old Lt. Colonel George Washington ambushed a small French force at the Battle of Jumonville Glen on 28 May 1754; the conflict exploded across the colonial boundaries and extended to the seizure of hundreds of French merchant ships at sea. Meanwhile, rising power Prussia was struggling with Austria for dominance within and outside the Holy Roman Empire in central Europe. In 1756, the major powers "switched partners". Realising that war was imminent, Prussia pre-emptively struck Saxony and overran it.
The result caused uproar across Europe. Because of Austria's alliance with France to recapture Silesia, lost in the War of the Austrian Succession, Prussia formed an alliance with Britain. Reluctantly, by following the imperial diet, which declared war on Prussia on 17 January 1757, most of the states of the empire joined Austria's cause; the Anglo-Prussian alliance was joined by smaller German states. Sweden, seeking to regain Pomerania joined the coalition, seeing its chance when all the major powers of Europe opposed Prussia. Spain, bound by the Pacte de Famille, intervened on behalf of France and together they launched an utterly unsuccessful invasion of Portugal in 1762; the Russian Empire was aligned with Austria, fearing Prussia's ambition on the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, but switched sides upon the succession of Tsar Peter III in 1762. Many middle and small powers in Europe, as in the previous wars, tried to steer clear away from the escalating conflict though they had interests in the conflict or with the belligerents.
Denmark–Norway, for instance, was close to being dragged into the war on France's side when Peter III became Russian emperor and switched sides. The Dutch Republic, a long-time British ally, kept its neutrality intact, fearing the odds against Britain and Prussia fighting the great powers of Europe, tried to prevent Britain's domination in India. Naples-Sicily, Savoy, although sided with the Franco-Spanish alliance, declined to join the coalition under fear of British naval power; the taxation needed for war caused the Russian people considerable hardship, being added to the taxation of salt and alcohol begun by Empress Elizabeth in 1759 to complete her addition to the Winter Palace. Like Sweden, Russia concluded a separate peace with Prussia; the war ended with the Treaty of Paris between France and Great Britain and the Treaty of Hubertusburg between Saxony and Prussia, in 1763. The war was successful for Great Britain, which gained the bulk of New France in North America, Spanish Florida, some individual Caribbean islands in the West Indies, the colony of Senegal on the West African coast, superiority over the French trading outposts on the Indian subcontinent.
The Native American tribes were excluded from the settlement. In Europe, the war began disastrously for Prussia, but with a combination of good luck and successful strategy, King Frederick the Great managed to retrieve the Prussian position and retain the status quo ante bellum. Prussia emerged as a new European great power. Although Austria failed to retrieve the territory of Silesia from Prussia, its military prowess was noted by the other powers; the involvement of Portugal and Sweden did not return them to their former status as great powers. France was deprived of many of it
Apothecary
Apothecary is one term for a medical professional who formulates and dispenses materia medica to physicians and patients. The modern pharmacist has taken over this role. In some languages and regions, the word "apothecary" is still used to refer to a retail pharmacy or a pharmacist who owns one. Apothecaries' investigation of herbal and chemical ingredients was a precursor to the modern sciences of chemistry and pharmacology. In addition to dispensing herbs and medicine, the apothecary offered general medical advice and a range of services that are now performed by other specialist practitioners, such as surgeons and obstetricians. Apothecary shops sold ingredients and the medicines they prepared wholesale to other medical practitioners, as well as dispensing them to patients. In seventeenth century England, they controlled the trade of tobacco, imported as a medicine. Apothecary derives from the Ancient Greek word ἀποθήκη via Latin apotheca, Medieval Latin apothecarius, Old French apotecaire.
In some languages the word "apothecary" is still used to designate a pharmacist/chemist, such as German and Dutch and Luxembourgish. "pharmacy" translates as "apotek" and "apteekki" in the Scandinavian and some Slavic languages such as Bosnian "apoteka", Serbian "апотека", Russian and Ukrainian "аптека", Polish "apteka", the Indonesian "apotek", borrowed from the Dutch "apotheek". In Yiddish the word is "אַפּטייק", pronounced "apteik". Use of the term "apothecary" in the names of businesses varies with location. In some areas of the United States it has experienced a nostalgic revival and been used for a wide variety of businesses, while in other areas such as California its use is restricted to licensed pharmacies. Apothecary, as a profession, could date back to 2600 BCE to ancient Babylon, which provides one of the earliest records of the practice of the apothecary. Clay tablets were found with medical texts recording symptoms, the prescriptions, the directions for compounding it; the Papyrus Ebers from ancient Egypt, written around 1500 BCE, contain a collection of more than 800 prescriptions, or ancient recipes for the apothecaries of the time.
It mentions over 700 different drugs. The Shen-nung pen ts'ao ching, a Chinese book on agriculture and medicinal plants, is considered a foundational material for Chinese medicine and herbalism and became an important source for Chinese apothecaries; the book, which documented 365 treatments, had a focus on roots and grass. It had treatments which came from minerals and grass, animals. Many of the mentioned drugs and their uses are still followed today. Ginseng’s use as a sexual stimulant and aid for erectile dysfunction stems from this book. Ma huang, an herb first mentioned in the book, led to the introduction of the drug ephedrine into modern medicine. According to Sharif Kaf al-Ghazal, S. Hadzovic, apothecary shops existed during the Middle Ages in Baghdad, operated by Islamic pharmacists in 754 during the Abbasid Caliphate, or Islamic Golden Age. Apothecaries were active in Islamic Spain by the 11th century. By the end of the 14th century, Geoffrey Chaucer was mentioning an English apothecary in the Canterbury Tales "The Nun's Priest's Tale" as Pertelote speaks to Chauntecleer:... and for ye shal nat tarie, Though in this toun is noon apothecarie, I shal myself to herbes techen yow, That shul been for youre hele and for youre prow.
In modern English, this can be translated as:... and you should not linger, Though in this town there is no apothecary, I shall teach you about herbs myself, That will be for your health and for your pride. In Renaissance Italy, Italian Nuns became a prominent source for medicinal needs. At first they used their knowledge in non-curative uses in the convents to solidify the sanctity of religion among their sisters; as they progressed in skill they started to expand their field to create profit. This profit they used towards their charitable goals; because of their eventual spread to urban society, these religious women gained "roles of public significance beyond the spiritual realm. Apothecaries led by nuns were spread across the Italian peninsula. From the 15th century to the 16th century, the apothecary gained the status of a skilled practitioner. In England, the apothecaries merited their own livery company, the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries, founded in 1617, its roots, however, go back much earlier to the Guild of Pepperers formed in London in 1180.
However, there were ongoing tensions between apothecaries and other medical professions, as is illustrated by the experiences of Susan Reeve Lyon and other women apothecaries in 17th century London. Women became apothecaries which took away business from male physicians. In 1865 Elizabeth Garrett Anderson became the first woman to be licensed to practice medicine in Britain by passing the examination of the Society of Apothecaries. By the end of the 19th century, the medical professions had taken on their current institutional form, with defined roles for physicians and surgeons, the role of the apothecary was more narrowly conceived, as that of pharmacist. In German speaking countries, such as Germany and Switzerland, pharmacies or chemist stores are still called apothecaries or in German Apotheken; the Apotheke is obligated to be run at all times by at least one Apotheker or Apothekerin, who ac
James Monroe
James Monroe was an American statesman, lawyer and Founding Father who served as the fifth president of the United States from 1817 to 1825. A member of the Democratic-Republican Party, Monroe was the last president of the Virginia dynasty, his presidency coincided with the Era of Good Feelings, he is best known for issuing the Monroe Doctrine, a policy of opposing European colonialism in the Americas. He served as the governor of Virginia, a member of the United States Senate, the U. S. ambassador to France and Britain, the seventh Secretary of State, the eighth Secretary of War. Born into a planter family in Westmoreland County, Monroe served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. After studying law under Thomas Jefferson from 1780 to 1783, he served as a delegate in the Continental Congress; as a delegate to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, Monroe opposed the ratification of the United States Constitution. In 1790, he won election to the Senate, he left the Senate in 1794 to serve as President George Washington's ambassador to France, but was recalled by Washington in 1796.
Monroe won election as Governor of Virginia in 1799 and supported Jefferson's candidacy in the 1800 presidential election. As President Jefferson's special envoy, Monroe helped negotiate the Louisiana Purchase, through which the United States nearly doubled in size. Monroe fell out with his long-time friend, James Madison, after the latter rejected the Monroe–Pinkney Treaty that Monroe negotiated with Britain, he unsuccessfully challenged Madison in the 1808 presidential election, but in April 1811 he joined Madison's administration as Secretary of State. During the stages of the War of 1812, Monroe served as Madison's Secretary of State and Secretary of War, his war-time leadership established him as Madison's heir apparent, he defeated Federalist Party candidate Rufus King in the 1816 presidential election. Monroe's presidency was coterminous with the Era of Good Feelings, as the Federalist Party collapsed as a national political force; as president, Monroe signed the Missouri Compromise, which admitted Missouri as a slave state and banned slavery from territories north of the parallel 36°30′ north.
In foreign affairs and Secretary of State John Quincy Adams favored a policy of conciliation with Britain and a policy of expansionism against the Spanish Empire. In the 1819 Adams–Onís Treaty with Spain, the United States secured Florida and established its western border with New Spain. In 1823, Monroe announced the United States' opposition to any European intervention in the independent countries of the Americas with the Monroe Doctrine, which became a landmark in American foreign policy. Monroe was a member of the American Colonization Society, which supported the colonization of Africa by freed slaves, Liberia's capital of Monrovia is named in his honor. Following his retirement in 1825, Monroe was plagued by financial difficulties, he died in New York City on July 4, 1831. He has been ranked as an above-average president. James Monroe was born on April 28, 1758, in his parents' house located in a wooded area of Westmoreland County, Virginia; the marked site is one mile from the unincorporated community known today as Virginia.
The James Monroe Family Home Site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. His father Spence Monroe was a moderately prosperous planter who practiced carpentry, his mother Elizabeth Jones married Spence Monroe in 1752 and they had five children: Elizabeth, Spence and Joseph Jones. His paternal 2nd great grandfather Patrick Andrew Monroe emigrated to America from Scotland in the mid-17th century, was part of an ancient Scottish clan known as Clan Munro. In 1650 he patented a large tract of land in Westmoreland County, Virginia. Monroe's mother was the daughter of a wealthy immigrant by the name of James Jones, who immigrated from Wales and had settled in nearby King George County, Virginia. Jones was an architect. Among James Monroe's ancestors were French Huguenot immigrants, who came to Virginia in 1700. At age eleven, Monroe was enrolled in the lone school in the county. Monroe attended this school for only eleven weeks a year. During this time, Monroe formed a lifelong friendship with John Marshall.
Monroe's mother died in 1772, his father died two years later. Though he inherited property from both of his parents, the sixteen-year-old Monroe was forced to withdraw from school to support his younger brothers, his childless maternal uncle, Joseph Jones, became a surrogate father to his siblings. A member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, Jones took Monroe to the capital of Williamsburg and enrolled him in the College of William and Mary. Jones introduced Monroe to important Virginians such as Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, George Washington. In 1774, opposition to the British government grew in the Thirteen Colonies in reaction to the "Intolerable Acts," and Virginia sent a delegation to the First Continental Congress. Monroe became involved in the opposition to Lord Dunmore, the colonial governor of Virginia, he took part in the storming of the Governor's Palace. In early 1776, about a year and a half after his enrollment, Monroe dropped out of college and joined the 3rd Virginia Regiment in the Continental Army.
As the fledgling army valued literacy in its officers, Monroe was commissioned with the rank of lieutenant, serving under Captain William Washington. After months of training and seven hundred Virginia infantrymen were called north to
Jacobitism
Jacobitism was the name of the political movement in Great Britain and Ireland that aimed to restore the House of Stuart to the thrones of England and Ireland. The movement was named after the Latin form of James. After James II and VII went into exile after the 1688 Glorious Revolution, the English Parliament argued he had'abandoned' the throne of England and offered it to his Protestant daughter Mary II and son-in-law and nephew William III as joint monarchs. In Scotland, the Convention did the same but claimed he had'forfeited' the throne of Scotland by his actions, listed in the Articles of Grievances; this was a fundamental change capturing a key ideological difference between Jacobites and their opponents. However, Jacobitism was a complex mix of ideas. After 1707, many Scottish Jacobites wanted to undo the Acts of Union that created Great Britain but opposed the idea of divine right. Outside Ireland, Jacobitism was strongest in the Scottish Highlands and Aberdeenshire, traditional Catholic areas in Northern England Northumberland, County Durham and Lancashire), plus parts of Wales and South-West England.
The emblem of the Jacobites is the White Cockade. White Rose Day is celebrated on 10 June, the anniversary of the birth of the Old Pretender in 1688. In addition to the 1689–1691 Williamite War in Ireland, there were a number of Jacobite revolts in Scotland and England between 1689 and 1746, plus many unsuccessful plots; the collapse of the 1745 Rising ended Jacobitism as a serious political movement. The first Stuart to be monarch of both Scotland and England was James VI and I, who claimed his authority was divinely inspired, a concept known as divine right, he considered his decisions were not subject to'interference' by either Parliament or the Church, a political view that would remain remarkably consistent among his Stuart successors. When James became King of England in 1603, a unified Church of Scotland and England governed by bishops was the first step in his vision of a centralised, Unionist state. While both churches were nominally Episcopalian, in reality they were different in governance and doctrine.
Attempts by James's son Charles I to impose common practices led to the 1639-1651 Wars of the Three Kingdoms, the execution of Charles in 1649 and the incorporation of Scotland into the English Commonwealth. After the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, political and religious conflict continued. In Ireland, the key issues were land rights and tolerance for the Catholic majority. Retrieving these was a primary aim of the 1641 Irish Rebellion but after the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, land held by Irish Catholics had fallen from 60% in 1641 to 9%. Only a small minority of large Catholic landowners benefitted from the 1662 Act of Settlement passed after the Restoration. In addition to struggles over religion, the Stuarts resisted the growing strength of Parliament. Louis XIV of France was the greatest exponent of Royal Absolutism in contemporary Europe, which meant many associated political absolutism with Catholicism. Charles II refused to call an English Parliament between 1681–1685, while in Ireland, only one session of Parliament was held between 1660 and 1689.
In 1685, Charles' Catholic brother became James II and VII, with considerable support in all three kingdoms. James' attempts to extend these measures to other Dissenters and his use of the Royal Prerogative to do so evoked memories of the religious and political divisions that led to the Civil Wars and were resisted by the Presbyterian Scots and his English Tory Anglican supporters. However, his Catholic viceroy in Ireland, Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, began replacing Protestant office holders with Catholics, while purging them from an expanded Royal Irish Army. In June 1688, two events turned dissent into a crisis. Prosecuting the Seven Bishops seemed to go beyond tolerance for Catholicism and into an assault on the Episcopalian establishment. In 1685, many feared civil war. Representatives from across the political class invited William to assume the English throne and he landed in Brixham on 5 November. Parliament offered the English throne to William and Mary in February 1689. A Scottish Convention was elected in March 1689 to agree a Settlement, with only a tiny minority of the 125 delegates loyal to James.
On 12 March, James began the War in Ire
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